A very serious question for the men here at DU:

[MineralMan]

85. Those are tough questions, and I'll be speculating, but:

The chattel thing was fairly endemic in European culture for a very long time. Most European societies were quite patriarchal.. Children and women just didn't have any role in deciding things, couldn't own property on their own, etc. They all had their place, and that was that. That's a historical artifact, and one that has proven to be difficult to overcome.

The intelligence and reason issue derives from and enables that patriarchal society. Unless you could believe that women were somehow intellectually inferior to men, it would be very difficult to maintain that type of society. Similarly, slaves were seen to be somewhat less than human, as a rationalization for their subjugation. Only by maintaining that inferiority could you justify the structure of the society. By denying women (and slaves) education, withholding their rights of inheritance and property ownership, the society perpetuated the myth. An uneducated person, for example, couldn't win in a battle of wits, usually, so was "obviously" inferior.

The two things work together to continue a society that is patently unfair. If women (or slaves) were your equals, then you couldn't justify insisting that they have an unequal role in society.

The women's suffrage movement happened in the US, because women did get educated and insisted on their equality with men. To be fair, there were some men who appreciated this and supported the movement. However, it took an effort not dissimilar to the legend of the Spartan women, who withheld sex from the men to stop a war. Women in the late teens and early twenties essentially rose up and demanded their rights in an unmistakable way. There was nothing for it but for the men to cave, at least on some level. Following that, women have extended their power, and are getting ever closer to having complete equality. There are still areas left to be conquered, but it will happen, inevitably. Today, more women graduate from college than men, and there are other things happening that assure that, I think.

And, as has been the case all along, there are many men who believe that there is no difference between men and women when it comes to equality. That doesn't hurt, but women are leading the way for themselves, and good for them!

Frankly, though, we're still not done with that patriarchal nonsense, even at the beginnings of the 21st century. Old nonsense dies hard.